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Articles from Sheryl Paul | Selfgrowth.com
- This is What is Embedded Inside Fear and Regret - by Submitted on Jan 15, 2020 from Sheryl PaulThis is a story about what happens when we forget to make room for grief around transitions. It’s a story that illuminates the heart of a highly sensitive person, and how easy it is to overlook and minimize the tenderness of our hearts. It’s a story of remembering my own medicine, and how easy ...
Views: 231 - This is One of the Scariest Things Humans Do - by Submitted on Jan 05, 2020 from Sheryl PaulWhenever I meet someone new and we talk about how my 15-year old son is a pilot, they look at me sideways and say something like, “You’re a brave mom to let him fly.” As I’ve written about in other posts, allowing him to fly does, indeed, drag me into a regular practice of facing my fears and ...
Views: 251 - I Hid in the Bookstore to Learn About Sex - by Submitted on Jan 05, 2020 from Sheryl PaulIn response to an email called “Emerging Womanhood” from my Sacred Sexuality course, a member shared the following on the forum. What touches me so deeply about her response is not only the exquisite vulnerability with which she tells her stories of becoming a young woman, but also the ways in ...
Views: 219 - This is the Most Common Statement I Hear About Sex - by Submitted on Dec 23, 2019 from Sheryl PaulI hear a lot about sex in my work with clients. I hear about their fantasies, their shame, and their shame about their fantasies. I hear about their arousal confusion, their sex anxiety, and their struggle with desire. I hear about the common arc of sexuality in long-term relationships: the high ...
Views: 353 - How to Excavate the Hidden Wounds to Help you Heal Shame - by Submitted on Dec 10, 2019 from Sheryl Paul“Whatever we have taken from them, the founding story of our lives, imposed on us by a mother and father who in turn inherited a faulty script from their own parents, isn’t even ours.” – Derren Brown in Happy There is an element of your shame that is not yours. It was drip-fed down through ...
Views: 272 - This is a Powerful Predictor of Your Well-Being - by Submitted on Dec 03, 2019 from Sheryl PaulWe all have inside of us a well of Self. This is a fluid well that is continuously being drained and refilled by how we spend our time, depleted and nourished by how we move through our inner and outer worlds. When the well is full, we are resourced and regulated, which means we’re more adept at ...
Views: 279 - Gut Health, Anxiety, and the Holidays Made Simple - by Submitted on Nov 26, 2019 from Sheryl PaulI’m delighted to share this guest post by Dianne Rishikof, a registered dietician and licensed nutritionist, where she shares her extensive knowledge on the connection between anxiety and gut health. I first read Dianne’s incredible book, “Health Takes Guts: Your Comprehensive Guide to ...
Views: 210 - This is the Most Powerful Hijacker of Your Healing Path - by Submitted on Nov 21, 2019 from Sheryl PaulWestern culture places a premium on feelings in the form of moods. While we diminish the importance of experiencing difficult emotions like sadness, disappointment, frustration, fear and jealousy, we worship at the altar of moment-by-moment impulses. This sounds like: I don’t feel like ...
Views: 184 - Career Anxiety And How To Trust Your Path - by Submitted on Nov 12, 2019 from Sheryl PaulI receive a lot of questions from course members and clients on the topic of career anxiety: “How do I know if I’m at the right job? How do I know if it’s time to change paths? Have I missed my calling?” (If you’re struggling the myth of a calling, please read this post.) These questions ...
Views: 229 - What If My Anxiety is Actually Intuition that Something is Wrong? - by Submitted on Nov 04, 2019 from Sheryl PaulOne of the most common questions I receive in my work is: How do I know the difference between fear that’s coming from anxiety and fear that’s coming from intuition alerting me to a real problem? It’s the million-dollar question, the one that drives people to my site in a middle-of-the-night ...
Views: 300 - This Simple Mindset Shift is at the Heart of Change - by Submitted on Oct 27, 2019 from Sheryl Paul“Much of our anxiety and inner turmoil comes from living in a global culture whose values drive us from the essence of what matters. At the heart of this is the conflict between the outer definition of success and the inner value of peace. “Unfortunately, we are encouraged, even trained, to ...
Views: 288 - These Two Banished Emotions Need to be Invited to the Castle - by Submitted on Oct 15, 2019 from Sheryl PaulIn myths and fairy tales, the banished characters are shadow aspects who represent the inner characters we would like to sequester away in a cloistral tower or banish to the middle of the forest: the virginal maiden representing forbidden chastity, the unattractive witch representing the ...
Views: 264 - The New Pledge of the Highly Sensitive is Life-Changing - by Submitted on Oct 01, 2019 from Sheryl PaulA theme has been constellating lately in my professional and personal worlds, and when I see a theme I’m compelled to write about it here as it’s my indicator that we’re tapping down into the realm of the collective unconscious: the invisible realm where we’re all connected, all struggling with ...
Views: 257 - Dismantling this Offshoot of Anxiety Will Set You Free - by Submitted on Sep 18, 2019 from Sheryl Paul“Anxiety is the dizziness of freedom,” said Kierkegaard as quoted by Mark Nepo, who continues with, “The truth is that every fresh experience has this dizziness of freedom that we have to move through. Every time we reach beyond what is familiar, there is this necessary acclimation to what is ...
Views: 353 - This is What Actually Goes on Behind Closed Doors - by Submitted on Sep 06, 2019 from Sheryl PaulOne of the most common questions I’m asked is, “How come other people don’t suffer in this way?” It doesn’t matter if we’re talking about relationship anxiety, friendship anxiety, social anxiety, or any other hook that anxiety hangs its hat on, when you’re the one suffering it feels like you’re ...
Views: 417 - A Roadmap to Break Free From Anxiety at Last - by Submitted on Sep 06, 2019 from Sheryl PaulWe spend at least fifteen years in school learning the skills that our culture has deemed essential for a certain type of success in the world. We learn how to read. We learn the basics of math. We learn how to write. If we’re lucky, there’s some art and theater thrown in, but it’s understood ...
Views: 247 - This is How to Overcome the Most Powerful Obstacle to Change - by Submitted on Sep 06, 2019 from Sheryl PaulWe all know that greens are healthy. We know that meditation can be life-changing. We know that breathwork is deeply healing and that yoga can be a pathway to profound change. We know that exercise is essential. We know that journaling is a powerful tool. We know it, but what stops us from ...
Views: 325 - The Most Powerful Medicine to Soothe a Rupture of Anxiety - by Submitted on Aug 08, 2019 from Sheryl PaulLife moves along in flows and eddies. The more you attend to your inner world and heal the long-standing and deep-seated pain and trauma that live at the root of intrusive thoughts, the longer the stretches of eddies and the time you’ll stand amongst the reeds, flowing with the small moments of ...
Views: 299 - Not attracted? Learn How to Unclog the Blocked Flow of Love - by Submitted on Aug 01, 2019 from Sheryl PaulOnce again, I turn to the poet and mystic Mark Nepo and The Book of Awakening for gems of wisdom about the stones that block our hearts from fully loving: “It seems this is the never-ending work of relationship, each of us in our own time and way moving the stones between us, repositioning ...
Views: 223(1 vote) - How to Harness the Hidden Sexy Ingredient of Marriage - by Submitted on Jul 21, 2019 from Sheryl PaulOur culture worships the gods of youth and eternal happiness. If we could bottle and merchandize the elixir of youth, most people in the Western world would purchase it no matter the price. We extol the blemish-and-wrinkle-free face and lay ourselves prostrate at the feet of the toned body. A ...
Views: 278 - How to Multiply Your Love and Attraction - by Submitted on Jul 21, 2019 from Sheryl PaulWhat would it be like to throw yourself full-bodied and without restraint into love’s arms, to set the fear voices and inherited scripts that say, “Love isn’t safe” on the fence of your mind and walk through the tattered gates of your heart that are still trying to keep you safe? What would ...
Views: 274 - This is How I Learned to Love My Husband Well - by Submitted on Jul 21, 2019 from Sheryl PaulIt took me many years to learn how to love my husband well, and, of course, I’m still learning. Like many people, I didn’t grow up witnessing a healthy model of true partnership. My parents, like all parents, did the best they could and they gave me many gifts, but I’m sure even they would ...
Views: 223 - Remedies for Eco-Anxiety and Absorbing the Pain of the World - by Submitted on Jul 21, 2019 from Sheryl PaulThe topic of world and eco-anxiety seems to make the rounds in my practice every few months, and last week was one of those times. Between longterm clients, new clients, and course members, the theme was flooding the room. I’d like to break it down for you using the principles of my work to see ...
Views: 271 - A Love Story is the Medicine for the Fear of Loss - by Submitted on Jul 21, 2019 from Sheryl PaulIt was one of those moments that I could have easily pushed aside and continued on through my evening wrapped in the spiderweb of distraction. It was a moment so small that I almost missed the worlds of beauty and pain that lived within it, like a monarch butterfly floating past and I, caught in ...
Views: 222 - This is Why You Struggle with Relationship Anxiety - by Submitted on Jul 21, 2019 from Sheryl Paul“Probably the next important evolution of Western humankind is to find a proper container for religious life so that we do not unrealistically expect another mortal human being to carry this high value. In short: don’t ask a human to be God for you.” * Robert Johnson, Balancing Heaven and ...
Views: 239 - How to Break Free from the Mental Addiction of Health Anxiety - by Submitted on Jul 21, 2019 from Sheryl PaulLike all forms of anxiety, health anxiety is on the rise. With information about our health more available than ever, the anxious mind that seeks control at all costs can easily latch onto health as a hotbed theme that invites this mind to shift into overdrive. You mean I can prevent ...
Views: 214 - Real Love is Available Love - by Submitted on May 27, 2019 from Sheryl PaulThe first part of this post appeared on Instagram this week. I’m expounding upon it here. Real love is available love. It’s not the chase. It’s not drama. It’s not longing. It’s not the kiss at the end of the movie or finally snagging the one who got away. Real love is here-and-now, human, ...
Views: 229 - “The Wisdom of Anxiety” is Coming Down the Birth Canal - by Submitted on May 17, 2019 from Sheryl PaulIn April 2015, I had a dream while on vacation in Los Angeles: Robert Johnson, the Jungian analyst who has informed so much of my work, came to me and said, “It’s time to write another book and it’s mostly written.” I woke up, faithfully wrote it down as I do with most of my dreams, then filed ...
Views: 566 - Intrusive Thought: “I Have to be Single In Order to Heal” - by Submitted on May 17, 2019 from Sheryl PaulIt’s a thought that arises frequently for those struggling with relationship anxiety: “I have to be single in order to heal.” Offshoots and extrapolations of this thought sound like: • “I have to backpack by myself across Europe.” • “I have to live in a loft in New York.” • “I haven’t ...
Views: 337 - This is What it Takes to Heal from Shame and Anxiety - by Submitted on May 17, 2019 from Sheryl PaulWhen I was in graduate school twenty-five years ago, we learned many essential principles and tools for becoming a skilled healer in the counseling arts. We thoroughly covered various modalities, including the depth psychological perspective that informs all of my work, and spent countless hours ...
Views: 272 - A Lifeline of Hope in the Swamp of Relationship Anxiety - by Submitted on May 17, 2019 from Sheryl PaulA coaching client recently wrote to me to share the following (shared with permission): Each time of the three times I spoke to you, you told me something that has been a huge lifeline for me: “If two people are willing to make it work, they can make it work.” You mentioned this to me three ...
Views: 257 - Self-Trust, Red Flags and Relationship Anxiety - by Submitted on Apr 11, 2019 from Sheryl PaulJust as there are no rules for life, there are no rules for relationships. That statement can be triggering for the ego, the part of us that insatiably demands definite answers and craves formulas. “Tell me how to live and how to love and then I’ll know that I’ll be okay!” the ego thinks, then ...
Views: 371 - A Remedy When You Don’t Know Who You Are - by Submitted on Apr 11, 2019 from Sheryl PaulOur culture entrains us not to know who we are. From the time we’re born and continuing into our early years, we’re conditioned to externalize our sense of self through being told when and how to eat, sleep, play, socialize, learn. Although this may be changing, the dominant child-raising ...
Views: 894 - Would You Like To Know Why Real Love Is So Scary - by Submitted on Mar 02, 2019 from Sheryl Paul“We are all made up of yearning and light, searching for a way out, afraid we will be shut in or cut off or repelled back into the ground from which we are reaching. This is enough to begin: To know, before all the names and histories drape who we are, that we want to be held and left alone, ...
Views: 385 - How Marie Kondo can Help You Fall in Love With Your Partner - by Submitted on Feb 07, 2019 from Sheryl PaulAnxious people aren’t typically the most easy-going people on the planet. Because our high sensitivity wires us for hypervigilance, which then causes us to scan the horizon for danger, we’re physiologically primed to have a more tightly-wound nervous system. Unless you received guidance as a ...
Views: 409 - How One Lightbulb Moment Can Ease Your Anxiety - by Submitted on Feb 07, 2019 from Sheryl PaulIn every session with clients, I drop down into the core of myself, breathing and opening into the vessel of being so that I can listen with the ears we do not see, the ones that hear underneath the top layers stories into the invisible layers where the gem that needs to be revealed rises gently ...
Views: 334 - One of the Anxious Statements I Hear Every Week - by Submitted on Feb 07, 2019 from Sheryl PaulOne of the blessings of listening to the inner worlds of my global audience is that I hear about the thoughts, feelings, questions, and stories that are archetypal to all human beings. I’ve written extensively about the various intrusive thoughts that enter my virtual office, but there are other ...
Views: 412 - The Two Most Important Qualities You Need in a Partner - by Submitted on Jan 24, 2019 from Sheryl PaulAs evidenced by our high divorce rate and, even more disheartening, how few long-term marriages are thriving and fulfilling, it’s clear that our culture has it all wrong when it comes to love. Not only do we project our gold and gods onto our partners instead of taking responsibility for our own ...
Views: 393 - One of the Most Powerful Questions to Cut Through Anxiety (Relationships, Health, Parenting, Friendship) - by Submitted on Jan 24, 2019 from Sheryl PaulWhen addressing anxiety effectively, we must attend to all four realms of self: physical, emotional, cognitive, and soul – or body, heart, mind, and soul. Attending only to one of the four realms is helpful, but it won’t help you heal anxiety from the root. By “attend” I mean we need tools to ...
Views: 460 - A Roadmap for How to Reclaim Your Magnificent Body - by Submitted on Jan 07, 2019 from Sheryl PaulSacred Sexuality isn’t only about sexuality; it’s about our relationship to our bodies, our creativity and our aliveness. When we learn to rinse away shame layers so that we can inhabit and appreciate the bodies we’re in (instead of the one we’re conditioned to believe we’re supposed to be in ), ...
Views: 367 - The Intersection of Sex and Relationship Anxiety - by Submitted on Jan 07, 2019 from Sheryl PaulIf you’re familiar with relationship anxiety, you know that it doesn’t take much for a flyaway thought to send you into a tailspin of anxiety that then leads you to question if you’re with the right person. This thought could be, “I’m not feeling in love” or “My partner always irritates me” or ...
Views: 447 - A Brave Explosion of the Myth of Desire - by Submitted on Jan 07, 2019 from Sheryl PaulAs always when I run my Sacred Sexuality course, I was blown away by the vulnerability and honesty on the forum on this last round. Where else do we share our deepest, darkest thoughts and feelings around sexuality, the ones we think we’re the only ones having, the ones that cause shame to ...
Views: 345 - There's Something Broken But It's Not You - by Submitted on Jan 07, 2019 from Sheryl PaulI spend a lot of time thinking about our culture, and it’s a topic I bring up almost every week in my blog and courses in some form. Lately, I’ve been thinking about how terribly sad and actually tragic it is that culture should support its members into becoming more of who they are, but we, in ...
Views: 383 - Explode the #1 Block to Healing from Anxiety (Relationship and Otherwise) - by Submitted on Dec 13, 2018 from Sheryl PaulA few weeks ago, as I was cleaning out our closet, I stumbled upon a stack of papers from my grandmother. Most of the papers were familiar, but one unfamiliar packet literally dropped onto my lap, a stapled report for an adult-education class in psychology that she took in 1963 that I had never ...
Views: 420 - How to Shatter the Myths that Are Keeping You Stuck - by Submitted on Dec 13, 2018 from Sheryl PaulA great deal of my work centers around shattering myths about love, romance, and intimacy that cause untold amounts of anxiety in relationships and sexuality. If we start with the very basic “doubt means don’t” slogan that permeates the culture of romantic love, we see immediately what happens ...
Views: 763 - Am I the Only One Struggling with Anxiety? - by Submitted on Nov 29, 2018 from Sheryl PaulPeople often ask me why they’re struggling with relationship anxiety or social anxiety or any other kind of anxiety when other people seem to glide through life more effortlessly. The subtext embedded in the question is, “Is there something wrong with me?” or “Why am I being singled out or ...
Views: 489 - The Poetry of Loss - by Submitted on Nov 11, 2018 from Sheryl PaulMy son and I are driving into town for our weekly Friday morning special time and Suzanne Vega’s song “The World Before Columbus” comes on. It’s a song she wrote for her daughter that I used to sing to Everest when he was a baby, and these lyrics made me cry every time: Those men who lust for ...
Views: 416 - The Fear of Getting Old - by Submitted on Nov 11, 2018 from Sheryl PaulWe live in an ageist culture. It’s not only that we’re terrified of death and hurry to sequester the topic away under the nearest rock or stuff it into the closest corner; it’s that, in a culture that reveres youth, beauty, and physical perfection, we fear aging itself. We fear the lines that ...
Views: 600 - The Best Piece of Advice I Can Give You to Reduce Your Anxiety - by Submitted on Nov 07, 2018 from Sheryl PaulOur era has been called the Information Age, the Technology Age, and the Digital Age. But it could also easily be called The Age of Anxiety, for anxiety is rampant and can manifest in so many ways: social anxiety, test anxiety, work anxiety, relationship anxiety, sleep anxiety, fertility anxiety ...
Views: 557 - “My Partner Isn’t Smart Enough” - by Submitted on Oct 31, 2018 from Sheryl Paul“One of the big traps we have in the West is our intelligence, because we want to know what we know. Freedom allows you to be wise, but you cannot know wisdom. You must be wisdom… The intellect is a beautiful servant, but a terrible master. Intellect is the power tool of our separateness. The ...
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